Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-11, which deals with immigration. This is an extremely important topic for the various parties, although differences can be seen in the speeches made so far.
I wish to add my voice to that of our immigration critic, the member for Laval Centre. I will not make the same points she did because, in my view, she gave an excellent speech.
I wish to speak as a member of the subcommittee on human rights. This subcommittee has not yet begun its work, but we are interested in the problem. The House will understand my sensitivity to the issue, particularly the situation faced by refugees.
Refugees are people who have involuntarily left their country because they had no other choice in the circumstances. Often, they do so under rather dramatic conditions. Having read on the topic and followed the newspapers, at least since I became an MP, I am aware of certain problems.
I wish to respond to the comments made by the member who preceded me to the effect that some people are not even able to produce identity papers. In some situations, when refugees leave their country, they do so in a panic.
When they are being pursued, or feel they are being pursued, they are not always in a position to prove their identity or to provide some document or other. Such situations must be given careful consideration. When the person coming after you is armed, you do not always have the time to go home looking for the documents you need.
I am pointing this out because yesterday I was in a meeting where people were describing the difficulties experienced by people currently in Canada who had come as refugees and did not have documentation they needed from their old country in proving their identity.
This is a fairly exceptional situation which should be brought to the attention of the House. Some people have been here for a dozen years or so. They have refugee status, but not the documents to prove it. This means they cannot return to their own country obviously, because they left it after they were persecuted or felt they were. So they cannot go back. They obviously cannot visit family who remained there. Neither can they have members of their family coming from their old country visiting them here. In certain cases, they can simply not travel abroad, even to a country that has no link with their home country.
There is also the loss of the usual entitlements of a citizen of Canada or of Quebec. For instance, they have greater difficulty finding work or obtaining a work permit, as it is very complicated, and they are not entitled to university bursaries and scholarships. The person I referred to and with whom I spoke yesterday was a woman whose children were of university age but, lacking documents and unable to obtain them, did not qualify for student loans or bursaries under the same conditions as any Canadian or Quebecer could.
This is the situation despite the fact that, under the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees, countries accepting refugees under these particular conditions must issue documents entitling them to certain rights, restoring their rights, but such is not the case here.
The Prime Minister of Canada often tells us we are living in the best country in the world. I beg to differ, in this connection at least, when this government is not capable of respecting the international convention of the United Nations relating to immigration that has been in place since 1951.
In this House, I have often questioned what point there was to having laws or regulations if they are not applied. In this case, however, what is involved is a treaty, but an international convention. Canada is not applying the rules the convention requires.
I would invite the committee members, including my colleague from Laval Centre, who assured me she would bring up this kind of case, to make sure that Canada respects international treaties. Before passing any new legislation, or while doing so, like this bill, which makes considerable changes to the system, this is something we must take into consideration.
There is a second aspect. I would point out that sometimes, and not this morning, not today, certain people speak of Quebec sovereignists as somewhat xenophobic. I am not saying that I have heard such a thing today. I would, however, like to testify to the fact that Quebecers are very welcoming to refugees. Throughout our history, we have always given a very proper welcome to refugees, including the latest waves.
As proof, yesterday I just happened to read Pierre Bourgault in the Journal de Montréal . He is a staunch and very persuasive separatist and makes no effort to hide the fact. He offered the following thought. If the rules on refugees are too tough, if a closed door attitude is adopted, will western countries such as Canada not in fact see an increase in the numbers of illegal immigrants crossing their borders? People wishing to flee their country would have no choice but to use the services of professionals and professionals means criminal organizations and so forth. The result achieved would be the opposite of the one sought.
As we know, and this is true with any piece of legislation, we must always be on the lookout for the down side. Mr. Bourgault quite rightly pointed out this risk. Furthermore, when we read the backgrounders provided when the minister introduced the bill, we can only be amazed at the hard line she takes. She talks of closing the doors, of making this bill tougher in response to the public perception in certain quarters that Canada is a preferred point of entry for criminals.
I am not questioning whether in fact criminals manage to slip past the IRB and are perhaps already here. In connection with this problem, I think that what are needed are removal provisions in the bill for the cases when this comes to our attention. Clearly, we must not encourage this sort of activity. At the same time, if we put too much emphasis on this aspect of the problem and if we shut the door too much by tightening the rules, we may get the opposite effect and prevent genuine refugees whose lives are threatened because of their political or religious convictions from entering Canada. Or we may prevent people whose rights, as recognized by the Canadian Charter of Human Rights, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, are violated from entering Canada.
I wish to add my comments to those made by my colleague yesterday. I am concerned about another aspect of the bill. Many people come to my office, to all members' offices, to bring up immigration matters. Perhaps we see only one aspect of the issue, namely the most problematic cases. After close to eight years, I have come to realize that, depending on the cases reviewed by a board member or by any other person, interpretations may differ. I am not saying it is necessarily the case with all those who currently hold these positions, but if one looks at past appointments, one wonders about the need to continue to make such political appointments.
In my view, this is one area that requires a great deal of skill, impartiality and training, because it involves highly judicial and legal issues. In the future, we should make sure that, above all, such appointments are not political ones. I add these remarks to those of my colleague and I am sure that she shares them with me.
The bill should deal with the appointment process. We need a tighter process that would at least give the impression that the system is very impartial, very fair and more effective, particularly in light of the number of claims pending.
For example, I am told that there are 400,000 people in the world who are awaiting a response on whether they will be accepted into Canada. Obviously, this is not just refugees, but the whole spectrum of immigration.
There are extensive delays in obtaining a response. I wonder why Canada—and the bill is still not clear enough in this regard—despite the warning from the UNHCR about imprisoning minors, continues to imprison large numbers of children and teenagers automatically when they are refugees without documents.
We know that there is child labour in a number of countries. Then, when they arrive in Canada, the best country in the world according to the Prime Minister and certain hon. members over there, they face the possible imprisonment as refugees, just because they are minors and because it would appear that we are not fully prepared to take them in, because they lack documents and we lack the staff to examine their files promptly.
Those are the points I wanted to raise. I do not want to extend my speech needlessly. I would like to remind hon. members in conclusion that we are amazed at the hard line attitude taken when this bill was introduced, when it is so important for both Canada and Quebec.
Although the Bloc Quebecois members agree with the principle behind the bill, we feel that Quebec's authority with respect to immigration is not clearly enough defined. This is where we have a problem.
As the House knows, Quebec signed an agreement with the federal government allowing it to select its own immigrants, so-called economic immigrants. At the present time, however, authority for refugees is left entirely to the federal government.
Once again, I repeat, we are very open to cases of this sort, if only out of a sense of humanity. Quebec is very aware of what is going on in certain countries and in certain circumstances. However, the Bloc Quebecois feels that it would be a good idea to spell out Quebec's authority under the immigration agreement.
